to the ark

13:10to the ark. Critics of the Bible decry this “petty vindictiveness” of God, since they say that Uzza was merely trying to be helpful, even spiritual, in his zeal to keep God’s ark from falling. But good intentions do not justify disobedience to God’s Word, which had decreed that human hands should never touch the sacred ark of God’s covenant (Exodus 25:14). God’s unseen hand would have been fully capable of sustaining the ark, and it was essential that, at the very beginning of the long-awaited Davidic kingdom, the people of Israel should learn finally to believe and obey the Word of God at all costs. An even greater judgment had fallen upon the men of Beth-shemesh for presuming to look into the ark, when it was returned from the Philistines (I Samuel 6:19).